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Posted on 02/12/2012 8:57:57 PM PST by Kaslin
Dear (Name Deleted): I want to take the time to thank you for turning in your paper assignment on time and for conforming to the minimum word requirement. Unfortunately, I have some bad news: You turned in the paper assignment for your political science class. I am not your political science professor and my name is not Dr. Johnson. The mistake was understandable as you are only a senior. I am certain that such errors will be less commonplace by the time you get your doctorate. In the meantime, the good news is that I went ahead and graded your paper. The bad news is that you got a zero. It really had nothing to do with the requirements of the class you are taking under me. I hope you understand.
Please note that I am aware that you suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. I know this because you have told me in writing, over the phone, and in person. There is no need for you to repeat yourself. I generally pay attention when people speak to me. But I am giving you the zero - not in spite of your ADD, but because of your ADD. I really think that attaching a consequence to your conduct will help you grow out of it.
Dear (Name Deleted): Thank you for your concerns over the content of our last murder lecture. These lectures can be tough and sometimes offensive – although I am rarely able to predict just what will offend students these days. In your case, you have been very specific with the basis of your personal offense. Regrettably, however, I will be unable to act upon your request. Let me explain.
When you asked me to refrain from using the term “pit bull” (when I discuss the People v. Berry dog mauling case) you were simply asking too much. I understand your concerns that “pit bulls will be unfairly stereotyped as dangerous” if (after they kill someone) we refer to their specific breed. But what you fail to understand is that the dog’s breed was a relevant fact in the murder trial. Berry chose the dog on the basis of its reputation in the hopes that it would keep people away from the illicit drug business he was operating out of his back yard. He had a pit bull but no fence. That is how the little child ended up being mauled to death.
Generally speaking, I have more concern for the lives of small children than for the reputations of dogs who cannot ever know the status of their reputations. I think if you reflect upon this you will understand that people may speak badly of pit bulls without them actually knowing it.
On a positive note, I have taken your concerns to heart. The next time a Yorkie or a Poodle mauls a small child to death I will make sure to emphasize their specific breed. That way, people will understand that pit bulls are really deeply misunderstood creatures.
Dear (Name deleted): I hope you don’t mind this unsolicited email concerning your status in my criminology class. As you know, I have a policy against coming into class late. You are always in your seat before class begins. But, recently, you have been getting up and walking out during the middle of my lectures. In fact, you do it every class period at about the same time. As you walk out of class, you generally reach into your right hand pocket. I suspect that is because you’re reaching for your cell phone in order to call your girlfriend.
Ever since I banned cell phones, guys have been getting up and leaving class to “go potty” with some regularity (no pun intended). But we all know that my cell phone policy did not really cause grown men to go potty more often. Instead, it began to interfere with their girlfriends’ rule that they must either call or text them at least once every half-hour. Since I am aware of what’s going on, I am going to implement a rule you will not like: I am hereby declaring that upon re-entry into my class, you are officially considered late. This means you will lose a point from your final average every time you step out and then step back in during my lecture.
This may seem harsh, but it will be of tremendous benefit to you. It means you will now be forced to act like a man, take charge of your relationship, and stop letting your girlfriend monitor you like a suspected terrorist. Furthermore, it may actually save your relationship. When a woman monitors you she is most likely cheating on you. She is making sure you are not nearby so she will not get caught in the process. If she isn’t cheating on you, she is very close to dumping you for someone she cannot control. Women love a challenge more than having a lapdog. Please think about what I have told you.
Dear (Name deleted): This is just a quick note to remind you of my policy concerning cell phones in the classroom. At no time am I to see or hear one of these annoying devices during one of my lectures.
I know that when your cell phone went off during our last class that it was a complete accident. I appreciate how quickly you reached into your pocket to turn it off as I was answering a student question on the topic of aggravated rape. This brings us to another issue. Please hear me out.
I know that I have not established any rules concerning the content of cell phone interruptions in my class. But I am considering a new policy in light of the nature of the incident with your cell phone.
Please, don’t get me wrong. I certainly support your right to listen to rap music celebrating the joys slapping a “booty.” I mean, DAT is your right if you’re really into booty slapping. However, (especially given that we sometimes forget to turn off our cell phones) it is perhaps unwise to program the ringer in such a way as to celebrate booty slapping every time someone calls. Know what I’m saying?
Anyway, I just thought I would share my insights with you. I wasn’t really offended. But the sensitive topic of rape should be discussed free from unanticipated celebrations of booty slapping. After all, the women might not share your love of booty slapping. And they might turn on you faster than a Yorkshire terrier.
One day I called an end user to help troubleshoot her computer problem and she had one of those phones that give the caller music instead of a ring tone.
The song she chose? “I’ll be Around” by The Spinners, with the tag line, “Whenever you call me I’ll be there”.
I don’t care who you are, that there is funny.
Ever since I banned cell phones …
We didn’t have cell phones when I was in school but in the early 80s wristwatches with alarms became common and affordable. I was a company operations NCO, every NCO I knew wore one. Our battalion Operations Officer held “one hour meetings” that always lasted a extra half hour to a hour. We started setting our alarms for one hour. It drove the major nuts. He finally banned watches from his meetings.
I LOL at you! Yeah, Mike Adams is is hated - just hated.
I'm in my early sixties, and I'd never heard that one before .... although I suppose it grew up in the last 25 years or so, since cells became common. Unintended consequences of modern technology -- women cheating on their men while managing them like dancing bears.
The dancing-bear bit has been around a while, though.
Bump to Dr. Adams.
“... it could happen to anyone, especially someone with ADD”
It actually did happen to me. Fortunately, it was a 400 level class (smaller class size) and the Professor caught the mistake before I left. The reason wasn’t ADD. It was simply that I was taking a full load of college courses, and working 38 hours a week. I had gotten about 2-3 hours of sleep a night for about ten days. Quite frankly... I was exhausted and my brain was simply fried. My point is not all college students just go to school. Many have jobs and other responsibilities. Thankfully, my Professors (at the time) remembered when they were students and had a bit of empathy rather than sarcasm. IMHO.
In other articles, Dr. Adams has observed - probably with some poetic exaggeration - that the vast majority of his students “have ADD” or claim some other disability that prevents their behaving like adults in his class. If the student in question isn’t wholly fictional, and if he made a genuine error, it’s probable that the instructors of the two different classes could simply exchange the papers they’d been given. If the other professor hadn’t been given a Criminal Justice paper (Dr. Adams’s subject), then the student was blowing smoke.
I was interested (as a mother of teen boys) in the part about their having to check in with their girlfriends on a strict schedule. My Bill will be able to avoid this by explaining that his parents don’t let him have a cellphone!
In my voice mail message I say, “hold on, I can’t find my phone!”. It is funny how many people will say that tricks them into waiting! I’ve gotten more than a few laughs out of that one.
I’ve seen a pack of Toy Poodles take down a grizzly and leave just a skeleton in five minutes. Don’t let that hair cut fool you.....they’re cold-blooded killers.
Interesting, and revealing, comment. I suppose that sh!tload of money entitles you to a 4.0 GPA.
You're right when you say college is not high school. You aren't there to socialize and screw around, you should be there to prepare yourself for the competition of the big, bad world.
Your professor is your boss, not the other way around.
Same here, Ilaughed out loud all the way through it. I thought it was supposed to be a humor column, and can’t quite understand some of the replies here.
I use our dog's name instead of Home as a contact. I didn't realize my wife added a barking dog for the home number and her cell instead of a ring tone. That always gets funny looks when she calls my cell.
The whole “checking in with the girlfriend” thing is just an excuse. If you have to text someone every half hour, the girl is either too clingy or you are stalking. I had boyfriends during college. I saw them or spoke to them when I had the time. After school work was done, the job that paid for all my expenses was over for the day, work at home to help my Mom was done... if there was time left, I spoke. If not, he either would understand or he could look elsewhere. Good for your Bill! The last thing he needs in his life is someone demanding contact every half hour.
That's the last thing anyone needs - even a nursing baby isn't that needy!
Anoreth decided she didn't want a boyfriend, before she went into the CG, because the boy she went out with a couple of times wanted a lot of attention, although not hourly check-in. She just wanted to go to the movies with someone other than Bill!
I hardly think that Professor Adams is “overbearing.”
His rules seem reasonable to me,FRankly.
And, might I remind you that without rules and conventions, etc. etc., one would have anarchy. Which anarchist society can you name that made a contribution to man’s progress down through the ages?
Correct, college is not for socializing and screwing around, and I do NOT go to parties or drink or sh!t like that. I work and don't have the time to mess around, even if I wished to engage in such activities, which I don't.
Your final point, that the professor is the boss, is conpletely incorrect. The professors would not have friggin job if I didn't go and pay for them to expound on whatever it is they're supposedly experts on. I am paying for a service -- I am a customer, not child who needs to be told when I can or can't go to the bathroom. And the professors are not "bosses." Their job is to lecture, and if the people in the cheap seats don't want to listen, that is not the professor's problem. As a responsible person (I can't vouch for most students, but I am a responsible person), it rubs me the wrong way to have professors take punative actions in the way that many of them do, for them to assume that I am an irrsponsible person who is incapable of completing the tasks put to me without some sort of threat that goes along with it.
It’s easy to say “well, no big diff, just hand in the correct paper. No problem”.
Consider another scenario. Let’s say an engineer (me for instance) is working on a contracted development project potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As part of the project, there are certain contracted dates when deliverables are due. Lets say that the deliverable is a dataset of performance measurements accumulated over a couple months time. Upon satisfactory delivery, the customer will release (pay us) an incremental lump of development money.
So under this scenario, if I send a dataset from some other project, and the customer has to tell me that I screwed up, do you think the bean counters are really going to pony up the cash?
Sorry, but life sometimes has real deadlines without “Do overs”.
Things have changed markedly over my lifetime:
As a 6th grader, I read at college level.
I incurred zero student debt. My bachelor's degree was funded through an ROTC scholarship, my master's via the GI bill.
I made mistakes with my two oldest children, by cutting them too much slack. My daughter graduated from college last year, and is off to a fine start in her career.
My 10 YO son is bound and determined to go to UT Austin. I remind him often that he'll have to finish in the top 10% of his class to matriculate there.
My oldest son? He was never scholastically inclined, but he is working nearly full time. He's held a grudge that we never footed a 4 year college for him, but he never showed the necessary aptitude and fortitude. We paid for a few semesters of community college, but that "investment" was actually an "expense".
Every now and then when the oil patch is flat, I'll take some temporary work to help fill the gaps.
One such job had me working at a warehouse, and one of the guys I worked with was impressively competent, a go-getter, and frankly, what we'd call a 'stud hand'...with one exception:
He was ten minutes late every day.
We were talking one day and he was grumbling about not getting a raise.
I said "If you want a raise, all you have to do is show up fifteen minutes earlier than you have been, every day. You have the rest down cold, but I heard the owner grumbling about you being late and that has blinded him to the rest of your capabilities."
I'm happy to say he took my advice, and had the raise within a month.
Be there when you are supposed to be, be ready to do what you are supposed to do, and you'll do better at most anything.
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